Author: Jim Butcher
Series: Codex Alera #1
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Ace
Publication Date: June 28th, 2005
Edition: Kindle Edition, 460 pages
Source: Library
Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | BAM | Book Depository | Bookshop | Powell's | Thriftbooks
But now, Gaius Sextus, First Lord of Alera, grows old and lacks an heir. Ambitious High Lords plot and maneuver to place their Houses in positions of power, and a war of succession looms on the horizon.
Far from city politics in the Calderon Valley, the boy Tavi struggles with his lack of furycrafting. At fifteen, he has no wind fury to help him fly, no fire fury to light his lamps. Yet as the Alerans' most savage enemy - the Marat - return to the Valley, he will discover that his destiny is much greater than he could ever imagine.
Caught in a storm of deadly wind furies, Tavi saves the life of a runaway slave named Amara. But she is actually a spy for Gaius Sextus, sent to the Valley to gather intelligence on traitors to the Crown, who may be in league with the barbaric Marat horde. And when the Valley erupts in chaos - when rebels war with loyalists and furies clash with furies - Amara will find Tavi's courage and resourcefulness to be a power greater than any fury - one that could turn the tides of war.
I went into this book with no expectations. I didn't read any reviews and didn't talk to anyone I knew who reads Butcher's books. I have read 3 of his Dresden Files books, and have minor issues with how women are written in that series. Or more how Dresden, the MC, talks about women. (Not exactly sexist, but weird to mentally comment on the attractiveness of a vampire or werewolf woman as they are actively trying to kill him.) I read this because I needed to know if it was a character choice since that series is written in first-person. I was pleasantly surprised, and happy, to discover that it is a character choice.
This was a very different series from Dresden Files, the narrative is third person, with multiple perspectives. Seeing all sides of this conflict, that is far from over. Tavi is a believable character to follow. I don't know if Tavi is the main-main character, but he has everything going for him that makes him seem like one. But I like him as a character. He actually acts like a fifteen-year-old. Something that honestly too many books do to their young main characters. He's insecure about things that a teenager would be insecure about, he behaves and reacts to things the way a young teen would.
I really liked all the other characters in this book as well. Though there was a little lack of focus when it came to antagonists. There were three groups of them. While two were actively working together, the third and more brutal one got a lot of focus that at times I felt distracted from the main conflict. Leaving him out would have made including him at all feel pointless beyond an event early on in the book, I still don't know how I feel about some of that character's actions. He was a little too on the nose evil and felt a bit cartoony. His motivations were basically "I hate women, and I am evil". There wasn't much else to his character. As far as I know, as I haven't read the second book, that character's role has been fully resolved. And it makes me wonder why it couldn't have happened sooner in the book in a different way somehow. I guess I just feel like that character took up too much page time that could have been focused elsewhere.
The antagonists for the series, I am curious how they are going to play a role in later books. This is a six-book series, and I can't fathom they will be the focus of the whole series. The benefactor for the mercenaries is a far less interesting character than the mercenaries themselves. I have a suspicion that another character close to him is going to betray him for their own reasons.
I hope I can get to the other books in this series soon. I'd like to see where things go and how they get there.
No comments:
Post a Comment